The World Is Evil: How Fear-Based Faith Robs Us of Empathy

I grew up believing the world was evil.
Not broken. Not beautiful and complicated. Evil.
That belief shaped how I saw everything beyond the church walls - the neighbors who didn’t go to our services, the books we were told not to read, the music that didn’t say Jesus every other line. It was drilled in with good intentions: Don’t be of the world. Protect your purity. Guard your heart.